Retired Prince William Voter Registrar Weimer Talks About Past, Looks to Future

By STEPHANIE TIPPLE

Betty Weimer, the General Registrar of Prince William County in the Office of Voter Registrations and Elections, has retired after working for 28 year in the elections office.

The Manassas native began working in the elections office in 1985 as the Chief Deputy Registrar while taking courses at Northern Virginia Community College and Strayer University for clerical studies. This was a change in her career, spurred by her commitment to her family and her local roots.

“I had been working in private industry as an office manager and I was commuting every day and my kids were young and I wanted to see if I could work in the county – this is where I grew up,” Weimer said.

Weimer was appointed as the General Registrar in 2003, and has served two four-year appointments in the position. And while some may picture working the elections office as slow paced when there’s not an election happening, Weimer’s duties as General Registrar was anything but.

“The staff and I work with all of the documentation that comes in from all of the people who want to be registered to vote. People move around, so we also try to keep the voting records as accurate as we can. We work with the high schools – we make sure that the students that are eligible to register to vote are registered. We work with the Electoral Board to make sure that the voting precincts are ready and prepared on Election Day. There are many, many aspects of what we do and it all revolves around voter registration and elections,” said Weimer.

And in her 28-year career Weimer has seen quite a few changes in the elections office, mainly centering on updated technology. After last fall’s election that saw long lines at polling places, Weimer also became involved in a discussion about procuring new voting machines for use at county polling places. 

“When I first came to the office we had correcting electric typewriters – there were no word processors. The voting equipment was mechanical voting machines and we’ve got electronic touch screens now. We went from doing tally sheets by hand with paper and pencils to computer spreadsheets, which really dates me,” Weimer chuckled, looking back on all of the changes at her time in the voter registration office.

“Technology has really improved the process – for the staff and for the voters,” Weimer went on to say about these changes.

One of the busiest times for Weimer has been during election cycles and Election Day, this 2012 Presidential election being no exception. “It was a very busy day. I spent the day trying to help voters get to their precinct if they weren’t sure where they were supposed to go. It’s just a day of trying direct people to the correct place, and act as sort of a traffic cop,” Weimer commented.

The thing that Weimer will miss most about her work as the General Registrar are the interactions that she has had with area voters.

“I like working with the public and organizations, helping them understand the process of voter registration and what we do as an organization behind the scenes to make sure that elections run as smoothly as we can have them run,” said Weimer.

Upon the point of retirement, Weimer is looking ahead at what will happen in this next stage of her life.

“When you’ve done something going in to the 28th year, sometimes you need to just do something. In my case, the doing something else is to spend more time with my family. I have teenage grandchildren who are thrilled to death that I’m going to be more accessible to them. It’s time to let go of all of the responsibility [of being a General Registrar] to just do something else with my life,” said Weimer.

And Weimer has no concerns about her colleague’s ability to continue to carry the torch after her retirement.

“They are a good group of folks – they are smart and I have no problem walking away from it, because I know they’ll do an excellent job and they all know what they’re doing,” Weimer said.